Context

"I’m having a relationship with everyone I’ve ever thought about or communicated with, and every object I’ve ever seen. I feel that life can be a composition; things relate to other things."[1]

‘I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now’ is one of a number of works in Hirst's early series, 'Internal Affairs', many of which were shown in his first solo show in a public galley, (also called ‘Internal Affairs’) at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, in 1991. Explaining that he liked “the near nonsense of the logic”, Hirst made the series as a means to, “look into myself, to work out or try to work out why my body is separated from my mind or if indeed it is.”[2] Unlike most of his other series, ‘Internal Affairs’ contains works made in a variety of mediums. As the artist explained in 1991: “I thought the ideas involved in ‘Internal Affairs’ needed to be realized in more than one sculpture. It had to be approached from different angles.”[3]

In this semi-autobiographical work, a ping-pong ball’s existence is precariously maintained by a jet of air coming from a paint spray gun. Using a wooden clamp, the gun is anchored against the sharp edges of a long and dangerous glass pane.

A year following ‘I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now’, Hirst made another work ‘Alone Yet Together and in Love’ (1992), in which a pair of hoses were similarly clamped to a pane, supporting two balls. A third work, similar but square with four hoses holding four ping-pong balls was made in 2002 called ‘All for One and One for All’.